Durham Jets have the perfect incentive for success as they prepare to face Nottinghamshire Outlaws at Chester-le-Street tonight.

Durham’s midweek victory over Yorkshire Vikings at Headingley saw the Jets climb to fifth place in the NatWest T20 Blast North Group.

A win in tonight’s Independence Day clash would see them move into a top- four place and a step closer to qualification for the quarter-finals of the competition.

Jets’ head coach Jon Lewis said: “We knew at the start of the week this would be an important spell for us with four games in eight days.

“It gave us the opportunity to make an impact in this competition, which was something we had struggled to do.

“After the weather provided a setback against Northants in the first game, we have gone on to win back-to-back games against Derbyshire and Yorkshire.

“Those results have kept alive our chances of qualifying for the next stage and we can take things a stage further if we can make it three wins in a row this evening. Notts are two points ahead of us, but if we win tonight our run rate means we will go above them and into the top four, with four games still to play. Then it is up to us to stay there.”

The Jets performed brilliantly with the ball to defend a total of just 123 against Yorkshire.

The spin of Scott Borthwick and Gareth Breese caused the Vikings all kinds of problems and the hosts were dismissed for just 95 with 2.4 overs to spare. But Durham will have to improve their batting if they are to give themselves a chance against Notts.

Lewis added: “We did not bat as well as we can at Headingley.

“I thought a total of 145-150 would have been about par and we were a good 25 runs short of that.

“We have batted well for the most part this season and this was a one-off bad day, but we made up for it with an aggressive performance in the field.

“Hopefully, we can maintain the same standards with the ball tonight, but also get our batting back up to scratch.”

With Ben Stokes on England duty and Durham’s leading T20 runscorer Calum MacLeod still on international duty with Scotland, Lewis has named the same squad which travelled to Headingley.